


Remember Me?

by Nebulad



Series: Sea of Stars [20]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mindoir, Pre-Relationship, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I am Doctor Mesia Vakarian. The crew and I took an unfortunate landing that injured many of our people. I am having… trouble getting the on-duty Alliance to respond.”<br/>That wasn’t really surprising. Despite the new security measures, Mindoir was still a quiet, cushy planet. Most of the <i>on-duty</i> officers were too young for retirement but just old enough to have fought in First Contact and so given a nice, easy guard job. And it wasn’t Faust’s place but she was feeling less than friendly towards the Alliance right at that moment and no one present <i>outranked her</i>, and so…</p><p>“What do you need?” she asked, straightening up out of her defensive slouch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember Me?

Faust was twenty-three when she returned to Mindoir for the first time since… everything. There was a new colony up and running, a new family living on their land, a new proprietor of their old general store. She hated it worse than she’d ever hated Earth— she hated the new families and their new guns to keep undeclared ships away, she hated the new store and the new farms and the new machines that they’d never had before.

She hated the Alliance bunker where they slept and she hated the shiny chrome walls that they hadn’t had to build by hand because the Alliance had suddenly decided that maybe it would be worthwhile to pay attention to the settlers. Bile rose in her throat when the kids huddled around the edges of their boisterous Alliance party at the bar that’d never been there before, where people drank and ate and told stories like nothing bad had ever happened on such a quaint little colony.

A settler approached her to offer another drink, and her translator had to interpret what he was saying. Mindoir wasn’t even French any more, and with that she decided she was going the fuck to bed and hoping that when she woke up, the soldiers would be too hungover to linger in this nightmare.

She’d thought that the party went quiet because they could see her storming away— everyone knew her history even if they didn’t act like it. They knew she was the colony kid, the results of a failed first experiment and she could feel them watching her when they thought she wasn’t looking. They were on Mindoir to resupply and while no one had asked her directly how she was feeling they were all _gawking_ at her enough that maybe it was supposed to be implied.

When she walked directly into the turian woman, she figured that okay, _maybe_ this time it wasn’t her that had ruined the party.

She had blue clan marks in precise, thick lines across her face and was wearing the uniform of a doctor— they’d had to learn to identify turian military uniforms, a little leftover from First Contact that was supposedly ‘balanced’ by having to also learn every other species’. She stood rigidly straight and didn’t let her eyes wander from the group as a whole. “Excuse me,” she said, on behalf of the turians behind her that weren’t nearly as prominent or distinct. “I am Doctor Mesia Vakarian. The crew and I took an unfortunate landing that injured many of our people. I am having… trouble getting the on-duty Alliance to respond.”

That wasn’t really surprising. Despite the new security measures, Mindoir was still a quiet, cushy planet. Most of the _on-duty_ officers were too young for retirement but _just_ old enough to have fought in First Contact and so given a nice, easy guard job. And it wasn’t Faust’s place but she was feeling less than friendly towards the Alliance right at that moment and no one present _outranked_ her, and so…

“What do you need?” she asked, straightening up out of her defensive slouch. _She_ wasn’t afraid of turians, and there were a few people on the team who would follow her to help if need be. It was technically against regulations for Alliance personnel to just _ignore_ an emergency landing by aliens on one of their colonies, although the definition of _alien_ was ambiguous. _Faust_ was technically an alien by Alliance standards, and was registered as such in her paperwork.

“We have everything we need to repair our ship, but we thought it would be prudent of us to _report_ where we landed. There was some technical difficulties involving an experimental ship part that we were working on that caused enough instability that our captain decided to land rather than risk open space. We could use some medical supplies if any are available— our crew is decently sized and as it is I’ll only be able to patch up the officers while the others wait until we return to Palaven.” Everything about her was brusque and precise, not rude but not friendly either.

“I can get you the medical supplies,” she said, nodding. She had the clearance for that at least, and knew how much was supposed to be requisitioned in an emergency. “I’ll need someone to come along, though— I don’t know much about turian medical practices.” Mesia nodded gestured forward a gawkier private with straight blue lines across his face. He marched forward, self-conscious and yet with the comfort of routine behind him.

“Accompany Private…” Doctor Vakarian looked at her.

“Shepard. Faust Shepard.”

“Accompany Private Shepard to the supplies and help her pick out what we need. And as for the report?” Mesia seemed intent on doing things the right way even if Faust would get written up for it— and _merde_ they would find a way to write her up for it. She was following protocol but aiding turians.

“I’ll handle it.” One of the other privates stood up, a dark haired biotic whose name Faust couldn’t think of off the top of her head. He wasn’t part of the usual team, but apparently there’d been some complications with his training and now they were testing the waters. She might have relished having a fellow biotic to shoot the shit with, but unfortunately he happened to meet her on the Mindoir mission where she was less likely to be friendly and the others were more likely to gossip about her.

“I shall follow you, then.” Mesia gestured to the others, half of which followed the private that was going with Faust and the other half who followed her to be witnesses. “Thank-you, Private Shepard,” she said, turning to attention back to her. “I like being able to note in my reports when the Alliance cooperates. Too much bad blood.”

Faust saluted, because the only thing she could think of to say was that she was too young to remember anything about the war that had never even come close to Mindoir. As an afterthought, she added “Least I could do for a fellow alien, ma’am.” That made Doctor Vakarian laugh— Alliance policies and definitions regarding _aliens_ were well known across the galaxy for being fundamental and exclusionary. There were movements to redefine the term, mostly from colony humans angry that their children lost ‘homeworld’ status by being born on another planet.

Faust, frankly, didn’t care.

As she led the private and the other troops, no higher ranking among them, she waited. The turian clearly had something on his mind that he was trying to find the right way to say. “Are you sure this is okay, ma’am?” he asked finally.

“You don’t have to _ma’am_ me, and I _know_ that it isn’t,” she said breezily. This was actually improving her mood— some turians would get to haul off on schedule and with all their maintenance workers healed up, and the Alliance would get to suck a fucking lemon for a while. Anderson would be proud even if she did get written up— he’d been in First Contact and _he_ wasn’t a dick. He knew protocol.

“Then should we be…” He was greener than grass, though it seemed to be a turian thing to follow the rules so closely. He would benefit and yet it was still grating on him that it technically wasn’t allowed.

“Alliance protocol states that alien landings of all sorts should be tended to diplomatically. We have emergency rations stocked for just these situations,” she explained. Even if he wanted to, the guy wouldn’t turn back. He looked like the sort to care about the engineers that would have to wait until Palaven to get medical attention, and not the sort to contradict Mesia’s orders.

“Then why did you say—”

“First Contact,” she reminded him, and he stared. _That isn’t what turians call it._ “Relay… 314?”

“Oh. I wasn’t… old enough for that,” he admitted. She grinned.

“Neither am I,” she confided. “The Mindoir guards are, though, which is probably why they suddenly became difficult to make contact with.” God she was _almost_ happy at that moment. She knew where everything was and soon she’d be getting that sweet, sweet reprimand. She was itching to cause trouble, after they forced her back to this place. “Now let’s get you your supplies before they suddenly disappear from stock after a mysterious emergency no one reported.”

. . . . .

“Garrus _where are you?”_ Mesia was glowering at the grainy vid chat image of her son, who'd just disappeared off the Citadel two days ago. He'd only _just_ bothered answering her messages.

“Funny story, mom—”

“I _very much doubt it._ Your father said you were following up on a lead that you weren’t supposed to and didn’t file your report,” she said, drumming her fingers against the desk. Talus wasn’t as worked up as she was, more confident that Garrus was simply flouting his duty rather than in any danger.

“Yeah, I followed that lead and guess what? I was _right._ Saren’s working with the geth,” he said fiercely. This was an argument for Talus, not her _._ “We were led to a Quarian with hard evidence.”

“Who is _we?”_

“See, _that’s_ the funny part. Remember that human from Mindoir that got caught giving us those supplies and called her commanding officer that word our translators didn’t know?” Faust Shepard. _Commander_ now, after an incident with the Alliance on Akuze left her as the only hollow-eyed survivor out of ten. Mesia hadn’t been surprised that the human had lived, but more surprised that she remained with the Alliance even after all that— long enough to become the first human Spectre.

 _Spirits,_ Talus was going to have a fit when he found out.

**Author's Note:**

> At least Solana likes you, Faust. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) where you can hear even more stories about most of Garrus' family disliking Faust. There was a bonus end to this where Faust actually showed up to banter with Mesia but I cut it because. It wasn't very good. I'm not mad about this in general but.


End file.
